


Still

by reading_is_in



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-14
Updated: 2011-06-23
Packaged: 2017-10-18 02:03:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 12,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/183770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reading_is_in/pseuds/reading_is_in
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last in the <i>Libation Bearers</i> verse. Follows <i>Orders of an Elder Time</i>. The year is 2019. Ben is not the only one to know loss and irresolution. A series of strange killings in Colorado will come haunt Adam in unpredictable ways.</p><p>Disclaimer: All recognized characters from ‘Supernatural’ are property of Eric Kripke/CW. This fan fiction is not for profit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Third/Is for the savior. Shall I call it that, or death? Where/Is the end? Where shall the fury of fate/Be stilled to sleep, be done with?’_ – Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers, 1074-76.

Still.

September 3, 2019.

“Case.” Adam slapped a newspaper down on the kitchen table with one hand, then sat down himself, setting a plastic bag on the floor at his feet. With his other hand he pulled out two bottles of store-brandcola, sliding one across the table to Ben. Ben grabbed it and pressed it against his face for a moment, savouring the cold. It was supposed to be Fall; but South Dakota was experiencing an unseasonable heatwave. Worse, the sole refrigerator on the property attached to Singer’s Salvage yard had given up the ghost three days ago. They were running low on cash for repairs, and the kitchen was smelling vaguely of sour milk.

“What kind of case?” Ben asked of Adam.

“Looks like a werewolf. Or a particularly exhibitionist serial killer.”

Ben scanned the double-page spread headlined ‘SECOND VICTIM CLAIMED BY KNIFE-WIELDING MURDERER: POLICE SUSPECT SICK CULT’. The paper was a local all the way from Elbert County, Colorado:

“Jane passed it on to me,” Adam explained, referring to one of their few connections in the  
hunting community, and even fewer friends.

“It’s a long way to go,” Ben said, merely in order to state the obvious.

“Nothing else on the radar. Unless you have particular plans for the season?”

“You know I don’t.”

“So let’s take it.”

* * *

Some people imagined the post-apocalypse as a nuclear winter. There had been a spate of bad movies about it when Ben was young, some of which he’d conned his teenage babysitters into letting him stay up and watch. Others imagined that people would live in bomb shelters or compounds, and if you came up above the surface without a radiation suit, your skin would start to peel and you’d puke blood, or be caught by flesh-eating zombies.

Ben Braedon was different. When Ben thought about the end of the world – which the combination of being an adolescent and knowing more than most people how close that had come to happening within his lifetime had left him wont to do on occasion – he thought of summer.

A fiercely blue sky, devoid of pollution from airplanes and factories. No more smog. Open prairies; forest creeping back over the remains of buildings, but roads would sort of remain. Enough roads for the black Impala to navigate. They’d keep weapons in the trunk and supplies in the back seat and they wouldn’t even have to talk (there was usually background music in this fantasy, and besides, they could communicate without talking). How exactly the two of them had survived this apocalypse, when the world was so empty they could drive all day and clear starlit night and never see another person, was unimportant to the fantasy. It was wrong to love someone so much you half-wished the whole world would die and leave the two of you alone, but it was only a daydream, and anyway he was an adolescent, and therefore licensed.

Since his old life ended Ben had not indulged in that fantasy. Now that he was with Adam, it would be traitorous, as traitorous as if he were to insert Adam into the fictional driver’s seat. Which in any case, would be incongruous.

It was probably a good thing to stop thinking about the end of the world.

* * *

When Ben came out to join Adam in loading up the Explorer, he burst out laughing.

“What are you wearing?”

“It’s tourist season,” Adam shrugged. “Well, the tail end. I’m a tourist. It’s a form of camouflage.”

“Camouflage,” repeated Ben sceptically. “Right.” Adam was dressed in long khaki shorts which revealed his white, skinny lower legs, and an oversized Hawaiian shirt. A pair of sunglasses  
with arms were styled like tiny alligators perched on his head.

“Do they even have alligators in Colorado?”

“Sure. Alligators, Colorado…I have that association…don’t you have that association?”

“I’m going to laugh every time l look at you if you wear that.”

“People will just think you’re the sensible one in the relationship.”

Adam smiled. Ben returned it involuntarily. They’d been ‘together’, for lack of a better word,  
for the best part of two years now, and Adam still surprised him sometimes with unexpected displays of lightness or affectation. Ben decided to keep the mood up:

“Why do you think people will assume we’re in a relationship? More likely they’ll take one look at me and assume I’m too hot for you.”

Adam grinned wickedly, and actually looked like he might be about to grab the front of Ben’s (normal) shirt and pull him closer, when a sound from the porch steps caused them both to turn back to the house. Immediately Adam hurried back to drag a chair closer to the doorway:

“For gawdsakes, boy, don’t fuss. Leave it there. Leave it in the sun. Ain’t an old man allowed to get a little sun whilst he’s able?” Adam blushed and replaced the chair in the sunlight. Bobby Singer, the residence owner and single oldest surviving hunter Ben had ever known or heard of, lowered himself carefully into it and scowled at both of them. Ben shifted – discomfited not by the grumpy old man performance, which was exactly that, but by the fact that their de facto guardian had broken his routine. Bobby usually slept in the afternoon, and Ben judged by the way he was holding himself that the arthritis which hampered his movements increasingly was preventing him from doing so. Ben didn’t know how old Bobby exactly was, but by the timeline of events he had pieced together in his head after joining the ranks of hunters, it would have to be in his seventies. As he settled himself, his old Rottweiler-cross, Tara, shuffled gamely out of the house after him, and took up position in the shade of his chair. Ben stepped up to join Adam on the porch, sensing his attention was required.

“Werewolf, eh?” Bobby held up the folded piece of paper that was Adam’s carefully handwritten note.

“We think so,” said Ben. “What else takes hearts?”

“Plenty of things eat insides.”

“At the full moon?”

“Don’t pretend you know better than me, son,” Bobby told Adam archly. “No werewolf with half its animal cunning would eat in Elbert County. That was the seat of the Tracer family – legacy of werewolf hunters that’d put the fear of God into any one of them.”

“Was,” Adam repeated pointedly. “It’s been seven months since Rachel Tracer vanished with no children and no siblings. Maybe she’s dead, and the wolves have their own network of communications.”

“Or it could be a very dumb werewolf,” Ben put in. Bobby gave him a withering look as though to suggest he was not the one to make accusations of stupidity. Once that would have embarrassed Ben, but now he understood the concern under the sarcasm.

“Well don’t skimp on the arsenal,” said the old man finally. “And if werewolves are back in Colorado, it’s a bad day for hunters.”

“They won’t be for long, anyway,” Adam reshouldered his backpack, and considering himself dismissed, turned back to the car. “Take care of yourself, Bobby.” Ben bent briefly to pat Tara’s head.

“You too boys,” Bobby said slowly, and caught Ben’s eye as he stood up again with an intense, half-warning expression.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

They stopped for night relatively early – the traffic had been hell, they were both sick of being stuck in the hot car and sweating into the leather. Ben used to imagine hunting as vaguely glamorous, and it certainly could be exciting – but the excitement tended to come in short bursts, with long stretches in-between of finding hunts, travelling to the place where the bad shit was happening, and then tracking down the thing that was doing the bad shit. Sometimes the trail was cold when you got there, and that meant more travelling. And all of it by road: airlines generally didn’t take to kindly to the sorts of luggage hunters toted around.

“So how come you’re in such a good mood today?” Ben asked Adam when they’d dumped their stuff in a motel room. Their default was still to order a double, because sometimes they slept in their own beds and sometimes the same, and they didn’t generally know what they felt like until it was time to do it. Apparently the motel owners had attempted a ‘nature’ theme, with leafy-spiral wallpaper, dark green curtains and light green bed sheets, not to mention a lamp shaped like a tiny oak tree. The result was a kind of cross between a 1960s timewarp and a hobbit hole, though thankfully the green colour scheme did not extend to the lightbulb.

“Why shouldn’t I be in a good mood?” Adam threw himself back on a bed: “It’s sunny, I’ve got case, I’m working said case with my hot boyfriend...just because you’re an emo at heart, doesn’t mean we all are.” The mockery was softened by Adam pulling Ben in and kissing him on the mouth. In the early days, he’d left most of the initiation to Ben, but Ben guessed he’d let go of his lingering discomfort at the five-and-a-half year age difference. Things were just starting to get interesting, when Ben’s cell phone rang.

“Ignore it,” Adam turned Ben’s face back to him.

“No,” Ben wriggled off: “That’s Bobby’s ringtone.”

Adam looked surprised, let Ben go, and Ben grabbed the phone:

“What’s up?”

“Where are you?”

“A motel. Bobby, is everything okay? Hang on, I’m putting you on speakerphone.”

“Don’t do that.” Ben stopped abruptly at the serious tone. Everything’s fine. Just – step outside for a second, wouldja? I been looking into this case of yours, and there’s something I got to say to you in private.”

“Two minutes,” Ben said to Adam, covering the mouthpiece with his hand, and Adam looked puzzled and vaguely hurt that he was excluded from this conversation. He had known Bobby longer than Ben had, after all. Had introduced them. Ben gave him a smile like ‘you know how he is’, and ducked out into the motel hallway. It was deserted.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m alone.”

“Alright,” said Bobby gruffly. “Now I ain’t sure about any of this, which is why I don’t want to go laying it on Adam yet. But I figure by now you boys been together long enough you can look out for him a little.”

“Of course,” Ben said, surprised. “I’d do – whatever I can for him.”

“Well then. How much do you know about Adam’s past?”

Ben’s heart started beating faster. His mouth dried. He and Adam had a secret. They had come to an agreement some time ago, that it wasn’t necessary to tell Bobby all the fucked-up possible details of their family histories. He must have not said anything for too long, because Bobby went on,

“About his mother?”

“Oh!” Ben tried not to make his relief obvious. “I uh, know she was murdered. By ghouls.”

“Right. You know how to kill a ghoul?”

“Head shots.”

“That’s right. Now you ain’t the best aim I ever taught, boy, so you’d better be sure, if it comes down to you, you can take those things out with one bullet.”

“You think it’s – ghouls? In Colorado?”

“Like I said, I ain’t sure. But they do eat insides, and they are smart enough to imitate other creatures. So far as I know, neither of you has faced one of these, am I right?”

“Well – I haven’t.”

“Okay.” Bobby drew in a breath. “Listen. I know a hunter down New Mexico – she’s closer than you boys anyhow – that’s got experience in hunting ghouls and werewolves. Why don’t I call her up and ask-”

“No,” Ben felt himself frown. “We don’t need babysitting.” A sudden protective instinct prickled. “If it _is_ a ghoul, I can take care of it. I’ve killed lots of things.”

“I know you have son,” Bobby sounded placating now. “But Adam was with you those times.”

“And he’ll be with me this time.”

“Right. But I don’t know how he’s going to react if he meets a ghoul – particularly as he wasn’t expecting...”

“We’ll be alright,” Ben said sharply. “I can handle it.” Suddenly he was angry. God! He’d be twenty in the spring. It was time everybody stopped treating him like the junior partner here, the one who needed looking out for. If Adam needed _him_ for a change, he was more than willing and able.

“Alright,” Bobby sounded uncertain. And – Ben realized – old. His voice was a little brittle now. Ben was instantly remorseful.

“I’m sorry I snapped,” he said. “I didn’t mean it like that. Thank you for calling. It’s just I really can handle it.”

“It might be nothing in any case,” Bobby reminded him, “Which is why I don’t want you going worrying Adam just yet. I’ll keep researching, and call you as soon as I know anything else.”

“Okay,” said Ben, “Thanks. Again,” and hung up. He clicked the phone shut and headed back into room.

Adam was sitting cross-legged on one bed with back straight against the headboard and his ridiculous shirt re-buttoned. “What did Bobby say?” Adam asked, meaning ‘and why didn’t he say it to me as well’.

“Oh,” Ben thought fast. “It was about your birthday. It’s next month, you know. We’re planning a – a surprise.” Well, if he didn’t feel like a shit now. Ben winced inside. He promised himself that he really would come up with something special.

“Really?” Adam grinned, his good humour restored. “Because cake isn’t a surprise you know. I’m already expecting one. A lemon cake with lemon icing.”

“I’m sure Bobby knows,” Ben grinned back, overcome by a sudden surge of affection. He really hoped it wasn’t a ghoul they were dealing with. That would surely stir up all kinds of shitty memories, and Adam seemed to have done so well with getting on with his life, with surviving all the crap that made ordinary people hunters. He didn’t talk about the past.

“Now, I believe we were up to something, before we were interrupted,” Adam raised his eyebrows and extended his arms to Ben. Ben leaned down, wrapped his arms around Adam and kissed him with feeling.


	3. Chapter 3

The Wyoming/Colorado border wasn’t much to see coming south – a sign at the side of the I25 welcomed them to ‘colorful Colorado’, and the tree-bordered scrublands marched on as before. The ground was dry with the unseasonable heat, and some of the touristy small towns they passed through had cacti planted outside the storefronts and signs proclaiming ‘Where the West lives’. Ben felt vaguely out of place, conspicuously urban – perhaps Adam with his alligator sunglasses had had the right idea after all.

Elbert, Elbert County was as small and agricultural a town as Ben had ever visited. Two churches, several shops and some houses covered what wasn’t ranch and farmland. It was only ten in the morning, so they headed straight for the ranch of the latest victim’s family:

“We already spoke to the other officer,” said the bewildered woman at the door. She was middle-aged, red-eyed with crying, dressed in faded jeans and a flowered shirt.

“We know ma’am,” Adam’s tone was gentle, his eyes sympathetic. Even Ben didn’t know how much was an act, and how much real remaining sadness for the shit hunters saw and heard all their lives. “But we’re not Elbert police.” He showed her the forensic detective IDs Bobby had had forged for them. “The department called us in from out of state due to the – particular nature – of the killings.”

“Oh,” said the woman: “Well, I suppose you’d better come in then. Jack? Jack! There are more detectives to see us.”

The usual questions turned up little that hadn’t been in the papers. Simon Walder, aged 16, disappeared on his way back from a friend’s house last Tuesday night, which just happened to have been the full moon. His body turned up in a basement two days later, sans one very vital organ. This was the second crime of its kind in Elbert in two months – the last having been at the last full moon.

“What was Simon like, as a person?” Adam asked.

“What?” asked the mother.

“Well, was he a happy kid? Well adjusted? Lots of friends...any enemies?”

“What do you think you’re implying, son?” the husband glared at Adam. “Simon was a good boy. An A student. He wouldn’t have gotten involved in any-”

“Of course sir,” Ben said, as Adam pretended to write in his notepad. “We just have to cover every possibility. “So there was no-one who might have wanted to, say, extract revenge on your family?” Yeah. He probably could have phrased that more delicately.

“Just what kind of detectives are you?” The woman narrowed her eyes.

“I think it’s time you left,” the man stood up. “We already told the other cop everything we know.”

“One more thing,” Adam raised a hand. “Please, remember we’re only here to help. Did you ever hear of a family known as the Tracers, who used to live here?”

“Rachel Tracer?” the woman’s eyes widened. “My God, I knew it!”

“Knew what?” Ben asked, as the man spoke over him:

“You found her? Is she a suspect? I always said that woman was crazy. Ought to have been locked away before it came to something like this.”

“We’re looking for her,” Adam said. “We’d just like to ask her a few questions.”

“She vanished months ago. Left no sign. But if anybody in Elbert was a Satanist...” the man shook his head. “You find her. You bring her to justice, you hear me?” And grabbed Ben’s arm.

“We’ll do everything we can to bring your son’s killer to justice sir,” Ben said carefully.

They got out of the house.

“Damn,” Ben made a face when they were back on the street. “Thankless job or what.”

“It’s sad,” Adam shrugged. “But you know...it’s the choice you make when you become a hunter. Maybe she had to leave because the townsfolk were getting ready to pitchfork her.”

“So....you want to check out the crime scene? Or the old Tracer place?”

“We could split up,” Adam suggested.

A vague warning hummed in the back of Ben’s mind. Would it be best if he kept tabs on what  
happened to Adam here? But apparently he’d already hesitated too long:

“You can take the crime scene,” Adam told him: “I’m not trying to keep you away from the action or anything.”

And if he argued with that, it would be totally out of character, and Adam would guess right away that something was up with him.

“Okay, sure,” Ben said. “Meet you back at the inn afterwards.”

“Got your cell phone?”

“Naturally.”

“See you later.”

Adam glanced around them quickly, making sure no-one was watching. It was heating up towards midday, and the sleepy street was deserted. He leaned in and gave Ben a quick kiss on the mouth, fingers brushing the back of neck and along his jaw lightly.

“We...probably want to keep that on the down low around here,” Ben felt himself grinning.

“Shouldn’t be so sexy then, should you?” Adam teased him.

“I can’t help it, it’s natural.”

When they split up, Ben was smiling.

 

* * *

The abandoned 6 Grosvenor Place was taped off, with the usual ‘crime scene, do not cross’, et cetera, and a couple of cops were still hanging around the front door, looking hot and uncomfortable. Also nervous: Ben guessed crimes of this calibre weren’t your everyday occurrence in sleepy little Elbert.

“Restricted access,” said the heftier of the two cops to Ben, moving to bar his entrance. Ben produced the ID. The local cop looked impressed for a second, then narrowed his eyes.

“You look awful young for forensics.”

“Thank you,” Ben said politely, a trick he'd learned from Adam: “I do my best. So important to keep fit in this line of work, isn’t it?” He glanced very very quickly down at the cop’s protruding beer belly.

“Who’s your supervisor?” The cop asked, and Ben gave him the number for one of Bobby’s phones. After the requisite call, and Ben gathered, a thorough chewing out by his ‘head of department’, the cop rather sulkily granted Ben access. The basement was likewise cordoned: Ben ducked under the tape, and took in the bloodstained flagstones which had recently held the final remains of one Simon Walder. He scanned briefly for EMF, but the detector sputtered uncomprehendingly, apparently not liking being underground. He approached the chalk outline carefully, taking out a pocket torch and scanning the stones all around for traces of hair, skin, or other remains of either victim of killer –

-“I wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” said a human voice from behind him, and Ben froze at the unmistakeable sound of a revolver cocking.

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

“Okay,” said Ben – never let it be said that he didn’t know when he was beaten. “Just chill out, okay man? I’m not the enemy here.”

“Drop your weapons,” said his assailant calmly. He didn’t sound like he was about to freak out and start firing for no reason, so Ben very carefully unzipped his jacket, unholstered his gun and lowered it to the floor. He followed it up with his ammunition belt, and the knife he kept (sheathed) in his jeans pocket.

“Stay where you are,” said his antagonist in the same unruffled tone, and Ben sensed him approach from behind. Then he felt hands at his waist, and tensed – the stranger proceeded to frisk him thoroughly, and Ben clenched his teeth to prevent himself from protesting. He couldn’t help but feel he was doing something wrong, despite the fact he’d hardly asked for such manhandling.

“Okay,” said his assailant finally: “Turn around slowly.”  
Ben obliged, and found himself face-to-face with a tall, thin and wiry man in a neat black jacket and dark jeans. Though he spoke with a Midwestern accent, he looked part Mexican or perhaps Greek, with dark hair and eyes and a tanned olive complexion. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

“Forensic detective Carl-”

“No you’re not. I heard all that from upstairs – by the way, when you’re committing fraud, you want try keeping your voice down. Never know who else will be listening. I’ve been monitoring this case since it opened. The forensic team the department called in doesn’t get here till tomorrow. Besides which, science types don’t go in much for silver bullets.”

He gestured with his gun to Ben’s discarded armoury. Ben smiled guardedly. As the gun was no longer aimed at his person, he tested,

“I carry a lot of useful things when I go to dark places. Silver, salt rounds...”

“If this is some kind of thrill-seeking trip, kid, take some advice: leave now and don’t come back. This isn’t a game – this is real.”

“I’m not playing,” Ben said seriously, and met the stranger’s eyes. Then he took a risk: “But seeing as the next full moon isn’t for seventeen days, I’m pretty sure neither of us is getting mauled tonight.”

The stranger’s mouth quirked in a half-smile. “Ah, it’s like that. Well, who are you? My partner and I are pretty much the authorities on werewolves south of Alaska, so if you’re new to this you’d better introduce yourself.”

“Ben Braedon,” Ben offered a hand, glancing around in case the aforementioned partner was about to appear and point another gun at him.

“She’s not here,” the hunter dismissed, but he shook Ben’s hand. “David Mendoza. We don’t usually team-tag, but to be honest, we’ve been here for three days and turned up zero. What do you have?”

“I just got here myself,” Ben admitted. “That is, my partner and I did. He’s not here,” he said with a smile as Mendoza repeated the gesture he’d just made of glancing around the shadows. Mendoza actually chuckled:

“Guess we hunters aren’t the most trusting of people.”

“True,” Ben nodded. Mendoza put his gun fully away, and Ben picked up his weapons again.

“I’ve looked all around here,” Mendoza told him: “Got nothing. All the blood traces are human. But hey, fresh eyes...” he made a vague gesture for Ben to carry on. Ben did so, scraping blood and cell traces off the flagstones, running the EMF, checking for any signs of a summoning or ritual gone wrong –about one in five of the victims he’d seen so far turned out to have unwittingly brought disaster upon themselves.

“Nothing,” he admitted after a moment. Then his cell beeped with a text message: Adam. _Unless u found something  
major, come back 2 inn. Plot thickens. _

“Your partner?” Mendoza asked.

“Yeah. Sounds like he’s got something. I have to go. Uh, you can come if you want to....” Ben wasn’t sure of the protocol for accidentally horning in on someone else’s hunt – the situation had never come up before. But it seemed only polite.

“Thanks,” Mendoza’s smile could have been genuine or ironic. “Appreciate it. You’d better go back out the front way – don’t want to confuse a cop you might need to get past again.”

“How will you get out?”

Mendoza pointed to the way he’d apparently gotten in – metal doors of the sort leading to backyard shaft. They had been locked and from the inside, but the padlock lay in two neatly severed pieces on a pile of sacking beneath. “Lasered that through the crack in the doors. ”

Ben was impressed. It must have shown on his face, for Mendoza said,

“If you’re going to try it, look first to check the lock will have a soft landing. Otherwise the clang will bring security down.”

“Why didn’t you just do what I did?”

“I’m....my face is kind of recognizable around here. I’m not the most popular guy in this town.”  
As they trekked back through the streets, that became apparent. Locals had started to emerge on their afternoon business, and though they were hushed with the pall that descends on any small town after tragedy, several spared sideways looks at Mendoza and his new apparent friend. The looks were decidedly unfriendly.

“This is the place,” Ben stopped Mendoza when they got to the Charming Inn. As Adam still had the key, he knocked took on their room door. Adam opened the door, smiling as his eyes met Ben’s, then he registered the person behind him. He raised his gaze, and his eyes widened, his mouth dropped open a little. Ben froze reflexively – what was wrong?! – and Adam said,

“David!”

* * *

It wasn’t cheating if the person you loved was dead anyway, and had probably never existed outside your imagination. They could never be like other couples regarding ‘jealousy’ or ‘exclusivity’, because they both knew about the ghosts, and how you could only ever really be in love with one person, only crazy for one person, even if you half-invented them to make them perfect enough. And you would go on and have other relationships, and do all the day to day shit, and a time would come when they weren’t on your mind every minute of every day anymore, but ultimately....that person had you first. You loved them first. You would always love them best, secretly, insanely, and it was probably just as well you didn’t actually know them.

This was accepted.

David was a different problem. David was real, alive, imperfect, and on their side, and he had been with Adam on similar terms, and it was only polite that Ben leave them alone to ‘catch up’ for a bit after the formal the introductions. All he had known about Adam’s one ex-boyfriend was his name and that he hunted werewolves, which, yeah – how many werewolf-hunting Davids could there realistically be in the United States? It wasn’t like he was jealous, not some kind of freak who got mad if their partner was friends with the person he used to date, especially when said person could quite possibly be a great benefit to their current business.

So, as the afternoon became dusk, Ben went for a walk and talked to Dean.

 

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

When Ben got back to the inn, David was gone.

“Rachel Tracer’s alive,” was the first thing Adam said: “She’s working with David. Apparently they met about a year ago, on another wolf case, and since Rachel can’t exactly show her face around these parts any more due to people like our friends the Walders, he’s doing the onsite investigation stuff and she’s researching in private.” His hands were busy, arranging their files and then actually taking their plates and cups to the sink, but he didn’t have any trouble looking at Ben.

“So David’s...nice,” Ben offered, which was exactly not his impression.

“I’m not sure about nice,” Adam grinned. “His heart’s the right place.” Then he stopped moving and sat down on the end of his bed. “Listen...I get that this is – awkward – obviously – but can we make it as not-weird as possible? I mean we’re all here for the same reason, right? And David really is good at what he does. Not to mention the fact that he now has a Tracer with him.”

“Okay,” Ben breathed out. “Sure. We can.” There was no reason not to.

“So....I don’t want there to be any secrets about this. You know David is my ex. Only ex, really. Is there...anything you want to ask about – that time? Within reason, obviously?” He tried for humour.

“Well – how old were you?”

“Eighteen when we met, nineteen when we broke up. David is ten months older than me.”

“Why – did you like him?” Internal facepalm. But seriously, Adam had invited. What question wouldn’t sound stupid under the circumstances? “I mean how did you get together?”

“Well....we met in North Dakota, and...initially, I thought he was hot. He is hot,” said Adam slightly defensively. “And we got talking...pretty soon realized we were both hunters...hell, how does anyone get together? We liked each other and had stuff in common. Lonely life on the road and all that,” he was back to the slightly awkward humour.

“Sure,” Ben said.

“It was good for a while.”

“But?”

“But it got to be more work than it was worth to keep it together.” Adam raised large candid eyes to Ben.

“Hmm.”

He had never considered his relationship with Adam work. He was pretty sure Adam hadn’t either. He had just never put too much thought into what sort of thing it was, only – given the circumstances – whether they would or they couldn’t. He had never conceptualized it.

“David’s hard work,” Adam elaborated.

“Yeah he kind of seems like it - um. That didn’t come out right.”

Adam chuckled. “No, I said it first. He is. That doesn’t mean he’s not a good guy – or a great hunter. Anything else you want to ask?”

And there wasn’t. Not really. It wasn’t like he had – or wanted – an exclusive, total claim on Adam’s heart, soul, past and future (probably you couldn’t be that crazy twice, unless you were actually a psychopath). Only:

“When you were with him, did you still think about....?”

“Sam? Sure. Sometimes. But by then I understood that he was dead. It was probably the first time I did understand it – after two years.”

‘And how long will it take me?’ Ben wondered. He suddenly needed this conversation to be over. God. People. When he was fifteen, he’d come home from his first real date – as in, not a date where his Mom or the girl’s Mom drove them to a pizza place and then sat upstairs in the same house while they watched a movie – and it had been less than a startling success, and Dean had put his arm around Ben’s slumped, dejected shoulders and advised,

“Relationships, man. They’ll mess with your mind.” For which Mom had scolded him.

It was, of course, the heat of that touch that had messed with Ben’s mind that night. Little fuck-up.

“What was your news?” Ben shook his head, suddenly remembering Adam’s text.

“That the Tracer place has been trashed - vandalized.” Adam woke his laptop up from hibernation – his cell phone was connected to the USB port. On the screen were photos of what looked like the interior of an old farm house, broad beams and rafters and furniture that looked to come from someone’s grandmother’s drawing room. Chairs and tables had been overturned, crockery smashed, and the walls spray painted with brilliant red: Ben could make out the words ‘freak’ and ‘killers’ in the scrawl. He whistled softly.

“Yeah.” Adam said. “It’s pretty recent – a lot more dust on the undisturbed stuff. Didn’t surprise David – he said Rachel has been expecting something like this since the killings started.” He shrugged.

“Humans,” Ben grimaced.

“That’s what I thought at first. But check this out.” Adam clicked through to pictures of a well-stocked library, shelf upon shelf of leather books, more ordered and better arranged than Bobby Singer’s. “Untouched. The dust in here was a foot deep, and nothing out of place. Now you’d think an occult library would be the first place targeted by vigilantes. But,” Adam changed the picture one more time and raised his eyebrows at Ben. “There was a crucifix on the door.”

“So something didn’t want to pass it.”

“Or couldn’t pass it.”

“Werewolf vengeance?”

“But that doesn’t make sense. When werewolves change, they’re feral. No reason. No language. And in human form, they don’t remember anything. Something or someone with at least a small amount of rationality did this.”

Something twinged at the back of Ben’s mind, nagging. ‘I can take care of it’, he heard his own voice say with what seemed inordinate confidence: ‘I’ve killed lots of things’.

“David didn’t have any ideas,” Adam closed the photo display, and Ben suppressed an irrational twinge of jealousy that Adam had shown the other hunter first, “But I emailed him a copy to show Tracer. He said he’ll call back if she has anything.”

At this point Ben would usually ask, ‘What do we do next?’ but he reminded himself of his resolution to handle things, of the prickly mixture of defensiveness and protectiveness he’d felt sure in just yesterday. “We could look for connections between the victims,” he suggested.

“If it isn’t a werewolf, there might be a pattern.

“Sure. Have to pick it up tomorrow though. Town library will be closed by now, and I’m not picking up any wireless signal.” Adam flipped the laptop shut and flopped back on his bed. He raised his eyebrows to Ben in casual invitation, but Ben was feeling pretty far from the mood. Instead he clicked the small TV on to a local news channel. Adam sat up straight at the reporter’s words:

“A third gruesome killing has sent shockwaves through the peaceful town of Elbert, fuelling fears of a Satanic cult….”

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

In the historical records room of Elbert town library, Ben and Adam sat at an oak table with three photographs in front of them.

“Josie Marsh, 42, post office clerk, married with two daughters. Simon Walder, 16, student, single. Jacob Allbright, 28, unemployed, divorced, three kids.” Adam stared hard at the photographs – drivers’ license shots, as though that would somehow force them to reveal more information. “They all lived in Elbert,” he said finally, and softly hit his forehead against the table. “I got nothing.”

“D’you think....” Ben frowned, focused on the old grandfather keeping time with loud intrusive tick, “D’you think maybe the cops could be right about this one? I mean, it really is just human insanity?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Adam responded wearily. “But even serial killers usually have some kind of...pattern. At least type. We’ve got a modern mom, a school kid and a deadbeat alcoholic as victims, two missing hearts and one....just messed up.” Judging by the euphemistic news report and what they’d gathered at the police department that morning, the death of Jacob Allbright, 28, unemployed, made the butchering of Marsh and Walder look positively tidy. The conversation Ben didn’t want to have was fast becoming unavoidable. He’d received a text (two identical texts, actually) from Bobby that morning – Ben hadn’t even known Bobby knew _how_ to text:

 _Ne%w development does not look good. This is what i wass afraid of. Be careful. call if you boys needsomthing. B._  
Adam couldn’t not be thinking it. Ben couldn’t _stop_ thinking it. There was no putting it off any longer.

“Adam,” he said, turning to face his boyfriend and his newspaper. “It might be ghouls.”

“Doubt it,” Adam said, without looking up from the photos. “Ghouls don’t extract hearts or hunt at the full moon.”

“And werewolves don’t totally _eviscerate_ ,” Ben said, “And they _can’t_ hunt when it _isn’t_ a full moon. Hey,” he put his hand across the photographs on the table to force Adam’s attention to him: “If it _is_ ghouls, are you - going to be okay? Because if you’re not I can handle this. I mean, I’m ready. You could go back to Bobby’s – take the train, hell, take the car – I can do this one by myself.” Well. Ben hadn’t thought he was going to go quite that far.

“Go back?” Adam blinked at him. “No. I don’t need to do that.”

“Oh.”

“I _had_ considered the possibility.” Adam frowned. “Is this what you’ve been conspiring with Bobby about?”

“We weren’t conspiring!” Ben felt himself blush. Damn, he’d thought he was past the age of his vocal range suddenly spiking. “It’s just - we don’t want you to have to do that – unnecessarily.”

“Alright, keep your voice down,” Adam glanced back and forth quickly. “Okay. Look. I shouldn’t have said conspiring. And yeah, thanks for worrying about me and all. But really. It’s fine. There’s no need to.” He slipped a hand onto Ben’s thigh under the table. “You hunted demons before, right?”

“Well, that was mostly you.” Relieved, Ben allowed himself a quick wry smile at the memory of those earlier days. “I received messages and got kidnapped.”

Adam didn’t pick up the humour. “Well whatever. You were there. You didn’t crack up. I’m almost twenty-five, Ben. My mother died when I was sixteen, and I’ve seen a lot of shit since then. I am prepared for the possibility that this might be a ghoul,” he shrugged. “I wish you and Bobby had told me you were worried though.” He turned back to the newspaper. Ben covered Adam’s hand with his own – it was still on his thigh, but had slackened.

“We just didn’t want to upset you. If it was nothing, I mean,” he shrugged awkwardly.

“Okay.”

Pause.

“But I really am expecting a lemon cake for my birthday.”

It worked, as it always did – the tension was broken. Ben smiled. He could’ve done worse than to end up with Adam. A hell of a lot worse.

“So, next order of business,” Adam started to fold the newspapers away: “We go check out the drunk dude’s house?”

“Food first.”

“We’ll pick something up on the way.”

Elton lacked a Subway, naturally, but the local sandwich shop appeared reasonably well stocked. The owner, a middle-aged woman, gave them a derisory once-over, but the teenager behind the counter seemed suitably impressed with their suits and ties:

“Are you guys like the FBI or something?”

“Forensic Investigations,” Adam flashed the card at her.

“That’s so awesome! CSI is like my second-favourite show. Do you see a lot of bodies and stuff?”

“Sure.” Ben supposed that was a pretty safe bet. So long as the kid was obliging them: “What can you tell us about Jacob Allbright?”

“Probably a drug ring murder,” the kid theorized expansively, leaning against the deli counter and gesturing with the tongs. “I mean he seemed like a deadbeat, you know, locked up in the house, or sometimes you’d see him hanging around the street corners....like he probably owed his dealer so they cut him, or whatever.”

“You watch your mouth, Ryan O’Conner,” the shop owner/cook reappeared, a spatula in one hand. “Jacob Allbright was a sad case. He lost everything – and there ain’t no cause for your people to go snooping around disturbing the body.”

“We’re just trying to see justice done, Ma’am,” said Adam sympathetically.

“Too late for that,” the woman shrugged. “Poor man lost his wife, his kids, then finally his mind to drink…no doubt the crazies picked on him as an easy target. You just let him be, concentrate on catching them. There weren’t no motive to this one, save the bloodlust of a few deranged souls.” She practically shoved them their brown paper bags, gripping each at the top as the grease stains from grilled cheese pooled at the bottom:

“I don’t think she likes us,” Ben said dryly as he inhaled his sandwich in the front seat. “Maybe we should have come as reporters.”

“I imagine she’d like _that_ even less,” Adam remarked, popping the tab on his cola. “We need to step up our game here, Ben. I already get the feeling we’re outstaying our welcome.”

The cops spotting Allbright’s apartment checked their IDs briefly without bothering to get out of their vehicle: the building looked to have been evacuated, or perhaps Allbright had just been the only occupant. A smudge of deep red caught Ben’s eye on the front doorstep: a smudged bloodstain. Either Allbright had done his best to get help after it (‘they?’) had attacked him, or more likely something had left the place wearing smears of him. Ben shuddered himself; looked to Adam. Adam spared the bloodstain a brief glance, then entered the building.

The interior of the apartment backed up the shop-owner’s opinion – it was hard to say if the place had been ransacked or this was how it usually looked. A TV with an indoor antenna sat on a wooden crate; the sofa was ripped and battered. The windows were broken and had been patched with brown tape. Broken glass and bottles littered the floor. The place stank – booze, sweat, blood and something else...cold, a little bitter. Something passed over Adam’s face.

“You okay?” Ben asked him.

Adam blinked. “Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“No reason. EMF?”

“Nothing.”

A desultory search turned up much of the same – until they got to the bathroom, where more blood was spattered on the toilet and shower stall. If either had been the type for sick jokes, that wouldn’t been the moment. Except it wouldn’t have been. Adam was staring at the mirror, transfixed. Very carefully he raised his hand, ran a finger round the outside edge of it. Then he held his fingertip up to Ben:

“Grave dirt,” he said quietly.

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

Back behind the wheel of the Explorer, Adam got his phone out and started to write a text.

“Bobby or David?” Ben asked.

“David. We should check out the cemetery north of town – its the biggest for miles. Night is probably best to avoid visitors.”

Ben nodded, though Adam wasn’t looking at him. Adam seemed perfectly calm and intent. Just a little more – humourless – than he usually was at this stage of the hunt. Adam didn’t enjoy violence, but he normally liked the puzzle-solving part of a case.

They killed the rest of the afternoon watching TV and reading the local papers; Adam did press-ups on the motel room floor, a sign of suppressed nervous energy. When he got back up on his bed, Ben felt like he ought to do something. Make some kind of gesture. They weren’t generally physically affectionate – when they kissed it was a teasing ‘You’re hot’, or ‘You wanna?’ and when they weren’t having sex they still tended to keep separate beds. Ben had never gotten used to sleeping with anyone in the literal sense of the words. But Adam had comforted him in those early days, when Ben was wrecked and grieving, and he wasn’t supposed to be the one keeping it together now, wasn’t he? So he positioned himself with his back against his headboard, and when Adam had finished his exercises, he opened his arms in an inviting gesture.

“You want to cuddle?” Adam raised his eyebrows, reminding Ben for a split second of Dean.

Ben shrugged and half-smiled. Adam crawled up and joined Ben on the bed. Instead of curling up against him though, he cupped Ben’s face and forcefully parted his lips with his own tongue. Ben made an involuntary surprised sound, unprepared for his air supply to be so abruptly cut off.

“O-kay,” he laughed, pulling back a little, “What’s gotten into you?”

“Nothing – yet,” said Adam suggestively. Then he fell silent and determined.

Afterwards, a strange unease crept over Ben.

“Still okay?” he asked hesitantly.

“You can ask me as much as you like, I’m still going to keep saying yes,” said Adam mildly.

“Now let’s get something to eat. It will be dark soon, and I’m starving.”

 

* * *

The Elbert-Kiowa cemetery, located a half mile north of the town, was a surprising size for such a small local population. High wire gates marked the entrance on a dirt road; David was waiting for them at sunset, dressed in the same black jacket and dark jeans he’d worn the first time Ben had met him. ‘Lurking’, Ben thought uncharitably, and pushed the thought from his mind. David nodded to them both and Ben returned the nod. The mysterious Rachel Tracer was still absent.

“Sample?” David asked, addressing Adam only. Adam produced the small plastic bag in which he’d kept some of the grave dirt. “I made a contact at the Denver U labs this afternoon,” said David and pocketed he bag. “I’ll take it up tomorrow and have her analyse it. Shall we?” he raised his eyebrows and gestured with his head to the cemetery. The graves in the first field were sparse and mostly small, just headstones with dates and names:

“What, uh, are we looking for exactly?” Ben felt like the newbie again.

“The sort of hideout amenable to ghouls,” said David evenly, and Ben absorbed that.

“You’ve hunted ghouls before?” he asked.

“Few times.”

Ben and Adam shared a look. Adam shook his head slightly, communicating that he hadn’t been there. Ben wished David would share a little more information. It got worse:

“Michigan,” said David, raising his eyebrows at an ivy-twined angel monument. He looked at Adam and Adam nodded:

“Just a bit.”

“Satisfying.”

“For you, maybe!”

“You loved it,” David smirked. Adam smiled too:

“Yeah I kinda did.”

“Anything I should know about?” Ben said casually.

“David and I once hunted a witch who was animating statues,” Adam filled in. “Had a thing for creepy angels.” It was creepy - tall, with empty, white marble eyes, hands clasped together imploringly. Night had properly fallen now, and the figure gleamed dully in the moonlight, the edges of its wings bladelike against the sky. “David figured out how to turn her own spell against her when she tried to catch it – but of course, because she was already animated, it, well, worked in reverse.” He grinned.

“That’s pretty cool,” Ben admitted.

“Takes a mirror and some brains.” David was headed towards an adjacent field, where Ben could make out dark shapes that looked like the entrances to crypt or burial vaults: square and hulking shadows. “This will go faster if we split up.” David nodded towards the slope of the land at the horizon, and Ben if squinted, he could make out more larger graves – this time stone containers above ground that reminded Ben of sarcophagi.

“Seems a lot for a dead body, huh?” Adam mused. “When I go, burn me.”

“Don’t say that,” Ben frowned.

“Gotta go sometime,” David reminded him. “Pretty much all hunters get burned. I suppose we’ve just seen too many possibilities with the alternatives….”

“You and me?” Adam said to Ben, and gestured with his head towards the field of sarcophagi.

Ben nodded and they started walking, leaving David to his crypts. The first row of graves yielded nothing – just expensive stone boxes, but when they got to the end of the second row, Adam’s eyes widened. He pointed to the last box and said:

“Bingo.”

Ivy was broken at the crack where the stone slab lid met the sides. Dirt had been recently moved away, leaving nothing at the thin black line of the opening.

“We should get David,” Adam said. “It will take two to move that, and we need someone standing ready with a weapon. Ben nodded, seeing the sense. Quietly they backed away from the tomb, and crossed over into the field of crypts.

“David,” Adam called softly. There was no answer. They headed around to look at the back of the entrances. Some of the grass was disturbed where someone had been walking, as it had been at the front of the crypts, but there was no sign of the hunter. Moonlight glinted off Adam’s face – he looked worried. Ben went to look at the front again, when something caught his eye, pulling his gaze down.

A slender black cell phone lay nestled in the grass, the screen dimly glowing. “Adam,” Ben called quietly, not touching the phone. Adam came and saw what he was looking at. In a shocked voice, he said,

“They got him.”

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

“Adam,” said Ben carefully. “Just – hold on a second.” His mental alerts, consciously developed over the past couple of years, were zinging. “This – could be a trick.”

“A _trick?_ ” Adam rounded on him. “What does _that_ mean?”

“Not a trick,” Ben hastily amended, “I meant a trap. I’m not accusing David of anything. I’m just saying that if he’s been captured, they’re basically down there waiting for us to go barging in without thinking about it.” He held his gaze, willing him to remember a time not so long ago, when Adam had given Ben similar advice.

“Yeah. Yeah alright.” Adam blew his breath out and ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry. You are right. Just – we need to do something.”

“Can I see that?” Ben held out his hand for the cell phone, which Adam was still gripping. He wiped moisture from the cracked screen. A weird luminous glob had appeared under the point of impact at the centre of the crack, but the phone still appeared to work. Adam found the address book.

“What are you looking for?” Adam asked.

“Rachel Tracer.” Ben flicked briefly through the contacts.

“Look for Emily,” Adam said.

“What? Why?”

“It’s a code name,” Adam shrugged. “For people whose name he didn’t want to type in.”

Ben found the number. “Why Emily?”

“It was his sister’s name. Hurry up.”

Ben pressed activated speaker phone and pressed the call button. After two rings, a female voice said,

“David?”

“Um – is this Rachel?”

“Who is this? Where’s David?” Ben had expected the legendary Rachel Tracer to have a deeper voice: a commanding, rich alto like Erica Evesham, who had been head of the debate team every year since the start of high school. The voice on the end of the line was high, light and decidedly wary now.

“My name is Ben Braedon,” said Ben hurriedly. “I’m a f- friend of David’s. We’re hunting the-“

“I know who you are,” she cut him off. “Where’s David? Did something happen?”

“We – think so,” Ben glanced at Adam. “We split up. David was checking out some crypts and we – found his phone in the grass.”

“Shit,” Rachel Tracer breathed out. “I knew this was a bad idea. Listen, don’t move. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“We might not have fifteen minutes!” Adam shouted.

“Who’s that?” Rachel demanded to know.

“My partner,” Ben said quickly, turning away from Adam’s attempts to grab the phone from him.

“Well, David is _my_ partner,” said Rachel, and Ben heard the sound of a car door slamming. “And more importantly, I know these things. Nothing you have in your arsenal will kill them. If you go down there now, all you will do is get yourselves – and David – killed. So wait for me. I’m bringing the book you need.”

“What _are_ they?” Ben asked her.

“If I’m right – and I am – they’re experiments,” she sounded disgusted. “A new kind of shapeshifter – some megalomaniac up in El Paso started a breeding program. Didn’t David tell you?”

“No,” said Ben a little numbly.

“Werewolf-slash-ghouls,” Rachel elaborated. “Some can also turn into kelpie.” Ben heard tyres screech and a horn.

“Shit. I’m gonna hang up now, before I cause Elbert’s first pile-up – wouldn’t that just seal my reputation,” she chuckled wryly. “Don’t. Do. Anything. Till I get there.” And the line went dead.

“Awesome,” Ben lowered the phone from him his ear. “It would really have helped if your buddy had seen fit to share that with us.”

“Maybe he didn’t want to _worry_ me until he was sure,” Adam retorted. He was pacing, back and forth before the monument. Ben felt sick. He heard Adam pissed off before, even disappointed – but that cutting, sarcastic tone was a new one. He hoped, after all this, they would be reparable. ‘It wouldn’t kill you if you weren’t’, whispered his psyche, and that was true. After his Mom and Dean, nothing would kill him. But it would hurt deeply, now.

Nine-and-a-half minutes later, an engine growled to a stop outside the cemetery gates, and Ben heard a car door slam. Footsteps slapped the ground, and an oddly-shaped shadow appeared over the rise. Ben squinted, and realized the odd shape was large backpack, strapped to a tall wiry woman in an incongruous raincoat. Bag aside, Rachel Tracer was the least hunter-like hunter Ben had ever seen: she was older than he’d imagined, 35 at least, with a long face and black hair pulled back in a messy bun. She looked like a modern artist. Tracer nodded to each of them shortly, dropped the bag and extracted a large, heavy book. Instead of leaping into action as Ben had sort of presumed they would, she actually _sat down_ with her back against the tomb and started flicking through the pages of her book.

“We can’t do anything until the moon starts dropping,” she informed them. “Until then they just get stronger. As the moon sets, they get weaker.”

“But David’s down there!” Adam exclaimed.

“I know that,” Tracer snapped. “If they want him dead then he’s dead by now. But they probably don’t. If they’ve bothered taking him down there, they’re keeping him in storage. Then her face softened. “You must be Adam Milligan.”

“I....am.”

“Rachel Tracer.” She didn’t get up but she offered him her hand from where she sat, and Adam shook it. “Last of the Tracer dynasty and all that jazz. And please, believe me. These things aren’t like any werewolves, ghouls or anything else you’ve ever hunted before. They’re a new breed. If we go down there right now the only thing we’ll be doing is stocking their pantry. How’s your Latin?”

“Shit, at the moment!” Adam exclaimed, blowing out and running a hand through his hair. “I’m kind of on edge!” Ben put a hand on his arm, cautiously. Tracer’s eyes travelled back and forth between them. She nodded.

“I read Latin,” Ben said.

“See what you make of this,” she showed him the pages of her book, and he squatted down next to her. She had pencil-marked most of double spread of Roman characters. “As far as I can figure out they’re talking about the same sort of thing – shapeshifters created by magic. It says we need ashes from oak-” she produced a small pot, “-and this. Something. Whatever it is, I hope we can find it around here.” Ben took the page and squinted in the moonlight.

“So we do the spell,” Adam went back to pacing: “Then what?”

“Then we can shoot them, if it works,” said Tracer mildly.

Adam immediately set off.

“Where are you going?” Ben asked him.

“Car. Bigger gun.”

“Okay.” Ben turned back to the text. The letters were small, in faded ink, and in handwriting that would probably have been a mystery even to the writer’s contemporaries. “It’s not a thing,” he said suddenly, startling. “It’s about feeling.”

“What?” Rachel stared at it hard. Then her eyes widened. “The feeling in the place! Oh my God, I thought that part was talking about the monsters. It means the place must be _free of_ base passions, like rage and the desire for vengeance and terror – it’s like, you have to kill them from pure motives – you have to _be_ the _homo rationalis_. Or rational woman. The sexists.” She raised her “face and blew the hair out of her eyes. “Wow. I’ve been staring at that for two weeks.”

“Guess it just needs a fresh pair of eyes sometimes,” Ben shrugged. “You did the hard work.”

“Well aren’t you cute,” she said dryly. “Better drop the flattery now, your boyfriend’s back.”

Adam re-entered the clearing before the grave, toting two of the larger guns.

“Sure that thing won’t blast the ceiling in?” Tracer raised an eyebrow.

“You do the magic, I’ll do the shooting,” said Adam shortly.

“Sorry,” Tracer shrugged. “Looks like the its kind of magic we all get to participate in. _‘That place where the incantation is made must be free of base passions on behalf of those who call upon the old gods’_ – which would be us, in this case. Now these things killed three people in my town and are mostly responsible for me being wanted for murder here, but I’m going to put that aside. You gonna do the same?”

“Let me see that,” Adam gestured to the book. “Sure,” he said after a moment. Ben wondered if he’d even read it. The light was getting bad. Which meant –

“That’s it,” Tracer judged as the moon dipped past the highest point. “They’re on the downward slope. Now the question is, do we go ahead, or wait for their power to wane some more, leaving David down there?”

 

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

“Are you kidding?” Adam sprang up. “I’m not waiting any longer. Let’s do this.”

“Alright,” Tracer shared a troubled glance with Ben. “Everybody just – keep calm. Keep a handle on your emotions.”

Adam started to push at the stone doors – Ben and Tracer joined in at once, and it gave with surprising ease. Obviously it had been moved recently. Ben turned on his penlight and ran the beam quickly up and around the walls: they were standing at the head of a steep flight of stone steps leading down into the earth. The walls were lined with grey-white tiles – some had chipped, or fallen away with age, leaving patches of earth visible. The air stank of mould, rot and old stone – Ben surreptitiously raised his arm across his face and coughed.

Adam thrust one of the larger guns back towards Ben – Ben took it and checked the settings. Tracer produced a small but efficient-looking revolver and released the safety on it, tucking the book under her other arm.

“Remember bullets are useless until the spell takes,” she said, and the heavy air flattened her voice: “If you shoot too early you’ll only annoy them.” Adam grunted in acknowledgement and started down the steps.  
They kept their footsteps as silent as possible. Either the mutant-ghouls couldn’t hear them, or didn’t care   
– or, perhaps, were just waiting for their arrival. Ben kept the light mostly on the steps in front of them, intermittently running it around the walls and throwing up weird shadows. He lit more cracked tiles and a few dead braziers – once the remains of a Catholic-looking mural, and further down, a reddish-black smear that might have been ancient blood. Tracer’s eyes flickered towards it briefly, but she kept walking.

Ben’s knees were starting to ache from the steep repetitive motion, when the tunnel curved sharply, and the light flashed up against a second door. This one was wood-panelled, well-preserved from the lack of air underground. Adam put his hand on the crossbeam and glanced back at both of them. Ben held his breath and leveled his gun, Tracer held the book open to the appropriate page, and in one swift motion, Adam slammed the door open.

Darkness.

Ben released his breath carefully and ran his torch over the room. Four elaborate stone tombs occupied the central floor space, and the walls were lined with panels reminiscent of a mortuary. Something dark and viscous stained two of the tomb lids, dried trails running down the sides. Ben could see Adam’s mouth tense.   
“See if they were regular ghouls,” said Tracer helpfully, “They’d have had plenty to eat right here.”

“Where the hell are they?” Adam ground out, then they all heard it –the low rumbling of voices, dried-up laughter, from beyond the back wall. Something clinked. Adam rushed towards the wall and started looking for an opening. The laughter stopped, obviously alerted by the noise of their footsteps. As soon as Adam touched the stone it fell away – an illusion, of whatever magic the shapeshifters were utilizing – and Adam fell forwards almost onto his face: if Ben hadn’t grabbed the back of his jacket and hauled him up, he would have connected with solid flagstone. At the real back wall of the stone room, David lay chained to a closed tomb, apparently unconscious – or dead. Ben couldn’t tell from this distance how severely he was damaged, but there was some blood – dark stains of it marred his jeans, and his wrists at the point of binding. Four human-like figures stood around the tomb, and when the fake wall disappeared, they all froze and turned to face the intruders.

Apparently Tracer’s style wasn’t to waste time; she stared in on the incantation immediately. Thankfully the ghouls didn’t recognize it – at least, they didn’t start tearing into the hunters right away, secure in their superiority:

“Well well well,” the first of the ghouls spoke over the spell. “If it isn’t Rachel Tracer. I must say I’m – disappointed. All great houses degenerate, I suppose, but really?” It sneered. It was wearing the face of a late middle-aged bald man, but its eyes glittered with something entirely inhuman.

“Forget her,” said a ghoul disguised as a teenaged girl, “Look who else has graced us,” she nodded towards Adam, sauntered up to him, and ran a hand suggestively down his chest. Ben clamped down on his surge of jealousy, remembering the need to keep calm for the sake of the spell. Adam gritted his teeth, and Ben saw his hands clench on his weapons. She leaned in and stage-whispered, loudly enough for everyone else to hear,

“Your Mommy dear was delicious.”

Adam lost it. His jerked his gun up to fire recklessly into the ghoul’s face – the ghoul barked laughter and intercepted his arm, effortlessly grabbing his wrist and squeezing so hard something cracked – Adam yelped and dropped the gun, and the ghoul kicked his legs out from under him. Ben fired instinctively, causing the ghoul attacking Adam to jerk back as bullets riddled her skull, but she instantly recovered and pressed forwards. Then another ghoul was on top of Ben, iron connecting solidly with his jaw, and he saw stars, and then he was struggling just to keep the thing’s fangs away from his face. His arm muscles burned with the effort of restraining it – at the same time, he brought his right knee up to connect with its stomach. From the corner of his eye he made out a second ghoul closing in on Adam – the fourth made for Tracer, but just then, she finished the last of the spell with a shout, dropped the ash and –

Nothing happened. The ghoul on Ben was as strong as ever, digging brutal fingernails into his side as he struggled to hold it off him. Tracer fired twice, bullets still useless – he felt his blood, hot and wet, and a spark of agony as the ghoul’s nails scraped muscle or nerve in his side. He heard Adam hiss something under his breath –

“Adam!” Tracer shouted. “This isn’t vengeance!”

“Yes it is!” Adam hissed back. “These things killed my-”

“They’ll kill the rest of us if you don’t get a grip!”

Adam visibly struggled to contain himself. Ben felt something change in the air, like a rubber band releasing, and the strength of the ghoul fighting him suddenly seemed to vanish. All its muscles went loose and its face slack. Ben brought his gun up with a jerking motion and fired three times into its face: the shattered thing collapsed in a bloodied heap. Ben looked around frantically – Tracer had dispatched her ghoul, but Adam hadn’t gotten to his gun yet. Ben fired his own remaining bullets towards the ghouls on his partner; one collapsed, head shattered, but the other like lightning, back through the passage they way they’d come. Adam lunged for his gun, grabbing it with his left hand.

“I’ll go after it,” Ben said quickly, and nodded to David, who still hadn’t moved on the table. “See to him.”

“No!” Adam shouted, and tried to shove past him. Ben grabbed his shoulders.

“It will kill you. You can’t do this.” He stared into Adam’s eyes, trying to find the partner he knew beneath the roiling blue. All the fight seemed to go out of Adam suddenly.

“Fine,” he bit off, and threw his gun down in disgust. It clattered on the flagstones. He turned towards David and gathered himself. Ben took off down the passage.

 

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

Ben’s own footsteps echoed in the passageway and up the stone steps. He reached the head of the tunnel, panting – there was no sign of the ghoul. His adrenaline levels dropped off, and the burning sensation between his ribs was nagging for his attention. A reasonable amount of blood was staining the side of his shirt and the waistband of his jeans, so he tore a strip of cloth from the bottom of his t-shirt, which was already ripped, tying it tightly around his waist and letting his shirt drop back into place. He tried not to imagine what sort of things lived under ghouls’ fingernails. Still breathing hard, Ben prowled the back and front of the tomb entrance cautiously. Nothing.

‘God damn it’, Ben blew out his breath and raked his hand through his hair. Very briefly he considered lying to Adam, telling him he’d slaughtered the thing. But then Adam would want to see the body, maybe sink a couple of bullets in it for good measure. It wouldn’t do. Besides, Adam of all people knew hunting didn’t always turn out like an action movie.

“Ben?” Tracer’s voice came up the passage behind him, followed by Tracer herself. A long, angry scratch ran the side of her face and her jacket was torn, but she looked in one piece, more or less.

“Got away,” Ben admitted.

“Happens to the best of us,” Tracer clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Listen, we need to get David to a hospital. He’s lost a lot of blood, and seems to have a pretty bad concussion.”

“The cops will be all over this.”

“Tell me about it.” A flash of moonlight revealed that Tracer’s light-blue eyes were grim. “I’m thinking we should head on north to Kiowa – it’ll only take a few more minutes than back to Elbert, and at least we won’t have the local ones to deal with. You coming?”

“Is Adam?”

Tracer nodded.

“Then I will too,” Ben said.

David was conscious, but barely, by the time they got him to the Explorer:

“My car’s a little conspicuous round here,” said Tracer apologetically. Ben drove, and Tracer sat next to him in the front passenger – Adam sat with David in the back and spoke to him quietly. Ben tried not to glance in the rearview mirror too often. Within the hour, he found himself in a hospital waiting room, his side cleaned and patched up with gauze. David had been taken into a back room, and Adam had gone with him. Tracer was sitting next to Ben, her legs crossed, writing something in a notepad.

“Well, we got three,” Tracer said, putting the notepad away in her bag.

“Yeah,” Ben acknowledged.

“So...is Adam going to be okay?”

“I don’t know,” said Ben honestly. “His – his mother was killed by ghouls.”

“I sort of gathered that.”

“He’s never been the type to – I mean, he’s not angry, you know? I’ve always been the fucked-up one in this   
relationship.” He half-smiled.

“You don’t seem particularly fucked-up to me - as hunters go. And believe me, I’ve met some,” Tracer   
grimaced.

“So...was it hunters who trashed your old house, do you think?”

“I doubt it. They would’ve taken the books. It was these things – when they sprayed ‘killers’ I assume they   
were referring to my family’s history.”

“Oh.” Ben looked down at his hands. At that moment, the double doors in front of them opened, and Adam reappeared – he had cleaned up, but the lines of his face were still grim and distant.

“They’re keeping David in at least 24 hours,” he said, before anyone could ask him. “He’ll be alright.”

“Are you alright?” Ben wanted to touch Adam, but this was a small town, and he didn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention. Adam just looked at him.

“Let’s find a place here we can get some sleep, okay?” Ben tried.

"Me, too," said Tracer: "I'll go back for the car later."

Adam nodded, and all three of them made their way to a small motel practically attached to the hospital – Ben guessed a lot of visitors didn’t go too far. The desk clerk didn’t bat an eyelid when they asked for a double and a single – probably assumed that Tracer and one of the boys were a couple. The second Ben and Adam were alone, Ben sat down on the edge of the bed and wrapped his arms around his boyfriend.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have caught it.”

“It’s not your fault,” said Adam, and he sighed heavily, sagged against Ben. Ben manoeuvred until they were both lying down. He faced Adam. Adam looked at the ceiling.

“We could…” Ben wasn’t sure what was offering. “We could go after it? The one that got away?”

Pause.

“No,” said Adam suddenly, and turned to face Ben. “Let it go. I don’t want a war with these things.”

“You – don’t?”

“No. I kill this one, they send another one, maybe after you….I kill that one, maybe they send something after Bobby.” Adam shrugged. “Where does it end? Maybe it’s better when hunting doesn’t get – personal. Vendettas are always dangerous. Let it go.”

Ben fell silent. He remembered the thirst for revenge, the terror, when the demon that had killed his family was still alive. But in truth, if he wanted to feel hatred and terror, he could summon them up just as easily now that the thing was dead. He still had random nightmares. The demon’s death hadn’t ended anything. It just...became less, with time.

“I understand,” he said quietly. Adam turned over and faced the wall. Ben didn’t hear his breathing even for a long time.

* * *

In the morning, Ben stayed behind to pack up their stuff whilst Adam and Tracer collected David from the hospital. Clean white dressings stood out stark against his olive skin, presumably covering stitches in his left temple. A small amount of his hair had been shaved. He held himself carefully and looked pale, but reasonably intact. Ben watched Adam’s interactions with him closely. They moved like two people entirely familiar with each other, Adam watching closely and ready to offer David an arm if he needed it, occasionally sharing a wry glance or knowing look with each other. There was no heat. Ben felt not so much jealous, as lonely, and immature – he missed the imaginary Dean in his head, the one who had known everything.

“So – thanks for – all your help,” David shook Ben’s hand awkwardly. “If you ever need extra backup for anything... Adam has my number. I mean I guess you’re not too impressed right now, but normally I’m a reasonably competent hunter.”

Ben nodded. “No problem. And yeah – you were outnumbered.”

“Can we hit the road?” Tracer asked, holding up her keys.

“Let’s do it,” David said. “I’m...looking forward to sitting down.”

To his surprise, Ben found himself smiling. When he wasn’t being arrogant, David was actually pretty likeable. Adam didn’t smile, but the anger he’d been wearing like a suit of armour for the past week had dissipated.

“Are you really okay?” Ben asked him that night, as they packed their bags into the Explorer again, facing north for South Dakota.

“Are you gonna keep asking me that?” Adam gave him a wry look.

“Yeah.”

“I will be okay. And I want to drive.”

Ben handed him the keys.

TBC.


	11. Chapter 11

Epilogue.

Ben and Adam parked in Bobby’s yard on Saturday morning. On Sunday evening, the canine Tara died. She had been quiet and sleepy most of the weekend, which wasn’t unusual in her old age, took to her basket on Sunday morning, went to sleep, and didn’t wake up again.

“She had a good life here,” said Jane awkwardly the next day. Her mother, the human Tara, had turned up unexpectedly in the morning, offering condolences and bringing a small bunch of purple heather, which they scattered on the pyre when they burned the body.

“That she did,” said Bobby gruffly, with his cap pulled low over his eyes. They didn’t know her age, Adam told Ben, but she had been old – he remembered the day they had found her, shortly after he came to Bobby - a thin, flea-infested stray sheltering under an old Firebird, alternately whimpering and snarling at them whenever they tried to approach. They had fed her on raw ground beef that night, to hold her over until the pet store opened – she’d taken up the basket of Bobby’s previous dog, and from that day she’d known dog happiness: plenty of food, space to run, and the near-constant companionship of her person. Tears trickled down Adam’s face as he watched the pyre, and Ben knew they weren’t just for the peaceful death of an old dog. He and Jane stood on either side of Adam, the older people on the other side of the flames.

That night, Adam went to see Bobby, and the two of them stayed up late in his study, drinking and talking quietly. Ben knew his place wasn’t there – he couldn’t sleep, but he sat up and waited for Adam, studying a book of vampire lore from nineteenth century Europe.

Adam came up about 1.30. He was drunk, but not totally wasted. He lay down on the bed and made a gesture for Ben to come lie down next to him.

“You okay?” Ben asked.

“Yeah,” said Adam. “You?”

“Yeah.”

“We’re okay,” Adam confirmed, and fell asleep.

* * *

Of course, Ben dreamed about Dean.

It wasn’t a memory, exactly, so much as a blur of part-memories, imagination, and older dreams: shoreline, winter, and seabirds, unseen but their calls penetrating the depth of the illusion. Grey surf rumbled. Endless. He was partly himself, partly watching the two of them from outside – Dean half-turned and gave him that look of conspiratorial humour, the one for when they were keeping something from Mom together. There were no words of wisdom, no conciliation, no confirmation that whatever Ben had done, it was okay, and he was doing alright, and would be alright. Dean in the dream didn’t talk – and Ben knew, with surprise and sadness, that he had begun to forget what Dean sounded like, the exact cadences of his voice. He was fading. Perhaps there would come a day when he faded entirely, except for the odd abrupt flicker of memory, or deliberate recall. ‘I’m still young’, Ben thought, ‘And I won’t die for a long time’.

He woke first, in the pale morning.

The end, and the end of The Libation Bearers.


End file.
